Ellerman Lines

[1][2] The company was incorporated in 1892, by the businessmen John Ellerman, Christopher Furness and Henry O'Hagan, who bought the assets of the Liverpool based shipping firm Frederick Leyland and Co Ltd.

In 1908 the company bought the financially troubled Bucknall Steamship Lines who operated on numerous routes between the United Kingdom, South Africa, the near East and North America, which in 1914 was renamed Ellerman & Bucknall Steamship Co.[3] The Ellerman group of companies now occupied a dominating position in the Mediterranean and Near East.

City of Winchester (1914) was the first merchant vessel to be destroyed in the war, being captured by the German cruiser Königsberg, while homeward bound from India with a very valuable cargo of produce.

By 1939 and the outbreak of the Second World War the fleet had been successfully rebuilt and expanded, to the extent that the Ellerman groups owned a total 105 ships with a combined capacity of 920,000 tons.

Many of these ships were subsequently requisition by the UK Government, whilst others were kept as cargo vessels to transport supplies to the United Kingdom.

41 ships were sunk by submarines including the loss of City of Benares, seven by air attacks, three by mines and one by a surface raider.

A new policy meant the building of fast steam cargo liners that carried no more than a dozen passengers in considerable comfort.

The focus was on re-building their international trade routes and to this end they purchased outright 12 cargo ships from the Government which they had managed in the war.

In 1967, as containerisation began to rationalise the World's shipping services, Ellerman Lines (excluding the Wilson operation) controlled 59 oceangoing vessels.

In 1966 Ellerman Lines joined the Associated Container Transportation (ACT) Group consortium and started the successful containerisation of its Mediterranean services.

By the early 1970s the Ellerman group had expanded its commercial interests into other areas, including hotels, brewing and printing.

In 1985 the shipping business was bought by its management, then sold to the Trafalgar House conglomerate, which merged it with its ownership of the Cunard Line to form Cunard-Ellerman in 1987.

[11] 11/1971 broken up at Whampoa, Hong Kong Several port cities have streets named after John Ellerman, for example Amsterdam and Antwerp.